


Fling

by Shayvaalski



Series: The Kids Are Alright [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Genderqueer Character, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Parentlock, Sexual Content, moran family values, seb moran: minder of highly sensitive people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Siobhan and Tommy meet Alec Rhydderch a handful of days into the first term of their final year at University. Tommy gets to date hir for a whole week by himself, and then things get a little more complicated, and then the two of them bring Alec home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jasmineandgorse](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jasmineandgorse).



> There's some complicated stuff going on with gender in this fic; I wouldn't call it misgendering because Alec hirself doesn't at all think of it that way, but definitely be aware of some complicated interactions on that front. 
> 
> This is for jasmineandgorse on tumblr, also.

Alec gets three high-fives in the first week it’s official, and two offers to call an adult.

“That’ll happen,” says Tommy, sounding amused, and ruffles hir hair, while across the room Siobhan sits with eyes mostly closed. She spins a pen between her fingers, not appearing to notice that there’s anyone else in the room; Alec is getting used used to this too, the way she shuts both of them out sometimes. 

Ze’s glad of Tom then, the warm weight of him beside hir, his big hand gentle on hir back. Ze’s always glad of Tommy, though, and Alec is sure Siobhan is too, in her way. Reading Siobhan is hard, and if it wasn’t for the way Tom looked at her, ze isn’t sure ze would bother trying. But he does look at her, and it’s hard not to follow that blue-eyed glance, and so when a month ago Siobhan had joined them on a date Alec had been surprised, but not entirely unhappy with the situation. She hadn’t said much, sliding dark-haired into the booth next to Tom, but at the end of the evening her mouth was careful and warm against Alec’s cheek, and Tommy had grinned, touched the small of Siobhan’s back. 

Alec is fairly sure ze isn’t in love with either of them, but that’s fine, since ze’s also _entirely_ sure that neither of them would know what to do if ze was.

***

 

Tommy loses the argument about bringing Alec home the weekend before Christmas break. Siobhan is very calm about it, barely even acknowledging there might be an issue with introducing an unknown variable into a household containing Moriarty, and eventually he backs down. As he’s told Alec with some resignation, you say no to Siobhan and she’ll listen but you can’t _argue_ , she doesn’t work like that. So instead he scrubs at his hair and starts planning, starts thinking of the phone call he’ll make to her dad in the morning explaining the situation—Seb already knows about Alec, of course, Tommy informed him almost as soon as whatever this is started. 

When he finally looks up from his notes and asks, almost reluctantly, “But what if your mum throws a fit, saoiste?” Siobhan blinks and tilts her head. It’s almost two in the morning. They’re alone in the room, because mostly they do sleep alone, which Alec doesn’t seem to mind; as he quite reasonably points out, they’re all in their final year, they can use the rest. She’s shirtless, in loose trousers with her hair down around her shoulders, and Tommy looks steadily at her for a solid three minutes before she answers.

“Then we make our excuses and get her out of the house.” Siobhan shifts, crossing her legs at the knee. “Honestly, Tommy, you’d think I couldn’t almost taste them coming.” 

Tommy makes a gesture towards her, exasperated. “And if it’s the kind that’s catching?”

“Then _you_ make our excuses and get us both out of the house.” She gives him the kind of look that suggests he has the intelligence of a particularly dull mollusc. Tommy waits, patient, and she blows out a soft breath, pupils huge in the dim light. In a moment he will touch her, focus her down, but for now Siobhan is holding her own. 

“It’ll be fine, Tommy.” Her fingertips graze over the spine of a book of mathematics so advanced it’s like a different language to him. “And you know dad will like it.” 

This forces a nod from him, and Siobhan’s mouth twitches upward at the corner without her eyes changing. She snaps her fingers and Tommy gets up without thinking, goes over to sit on the edge of her bed so that he’s within arms reach. When Alec had seen the room the first time he’d made a kind of ‘huh’ noise, but not looked at all startled.

He already knew about Siobhan and Tommy by that point; everybody did. Alec had just taken them in stride more easily, and remembering that makes a little of the tension go out of Tommy’s neck. When her mum was being Jimmy Moran, as he always was in mixed company, he was easy enough to deal with. No harder than Siobhan on a good day, certainly, and most of her days this year have been good.

Tommy reaches for her, settling his hand so his fingers brace the back of her neck and his thumb settles into the groove just below her ear. After a moment, Siobhan leans into him, infinitesimally, and he tightens his grip until her breath is no longer shallow and quick against his wrist. 

 

*** 

 

“This is our girlfriend,” Siobhan says, and her hand on Alec’s shoulder is claiming but not proprietary. She watches her father’s face with interest; she doesn’t have to watch her mum’s. She already knows what kind of expression Jim will wear, a kind of tolerant amused affection, and later they will sit together in the kitchen very early in the morning and he will tell her where Siobhan is succeeding and where she is not. 

“Boyfriend,” Tommy murmurs under his breath, and dad’s eyebrows are just beginning to lift when Alec says, cheerfully, “Partner. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Moran,” and offers her hand to Seb. He takes it, grinning. Siobhan keeps her fingers lightly on Alec’s shoulder, standing very straight and very fierce, because dad looks casual as anything but she can tell he’s worried. Her family remembers Amy much more clearly than she does. This is fine with Siobhan; this is fine with The Girl—but it makes bringing Alec home charged in a way that sparks off the corners of her vision and causes Tommy to stay very close to both of them, in case of accidents.

Alec is turning to mum, now, and Siobhan lets her hand slide casually to the small of her back, intimate and clear. Jim’s eyes flick to it, to her, and then back to Alec, so fast that Siobhan knows she will be the only one to see it. His nod is equally quick, equally small; she hisses out a soft breath and Tommy relaxes behind her. 

Mum takes Alec’s hand, smiles at her vague and polite, and Siobhan holds down a shimmering laugh at the artistry of it, of Jimmy Moran swallowing Moriarty without a ripple or a trace. She strokes her thumb against the base of their girlfriend’s spine. Sebastian makes a quiet noise, almost subvocal, and Siobhan glances over to see him look at her the same way she’s seen him look at mum. That same pained proud fondness. 

She has to look away. Siobhan has always been too much empty space for what dad is to echo inside her without pain. 

 

Siobhan slides into bed with hir sometime after midnight, waking Alec from a sound sleep by slipping her small cool hands beneath hir shirt. Tom follows not long after, padding across the guest room in the moonlight and making the bed creak. Neither of them say anything at first, and Alec begins to drift back to sleep; it’s nice to be in a bed that fits all of them, even if the room is tiny and appears to be entirely unused. Tommy strokes hir hip, slowly, lazily, and Siobhan keeps her hands where they are, unmoving. 

Alec is inches from dropping off when Tom leans forward and kisses hir neck. Ze comes awake all at once; Bhan laughs. There’s a moment of rearranging, until Siobhan leans on her hands over Alec, long dark hair falling down like a curtain. Tommy stays propped up on one elbow, carefully separate from the two of them, like either Siobhan or her man always is when they’re all three in one place. Ze wrinkles hir nose at her, before craning hir neck to press a kiss to Siobhan’s mouth. The woman makes a small smug noise, tries to deepen it. 

“We’re in your parents’ house,” Alec says, slightly scolding. Tom snorts, and his fingers brush Alec’s bared belly. Ze twitches, arches towards him a little, and hir hips meet Siobhan’s before falling away. 

“They won’t mind,” she purrs, and leans down to nip at Alec’s neck. “We’re all adults, and they give me my head when it comes to my own affairs—” another soft bite, and Alec’s eyes sag closed “—trust me, angel. Ask Tommy, even.”

“Why do you think they overhauled the spare room?” Tom sprawls back against the mattress, blue eyes half-closed and glinting in the low light. “It was storage last time we were home. God knows where Mr. Moran put everything.”

“My shed, probably.” Siobhan transfers her weight onto one elbow, freeing the other hand to run a long line down Alec’s side. Ze sighs, relaxes back, echoing the motion with both hir hands, tracing ribs, hips, thighs; hir girlfriend wriggles with pleasure. “Surprised they didn’t fix up that up so we could be out of the house. Must not’ve been time.”

“I only called last week.” Tom sits up, keeping carefully clear of Siobhan, and kisses Alec, slow and lingering. Then he drops back down, loose-limbed and still adolescent at twenty-two. Ze drops her hand towards him without looking, and though Siobhan makes an offended little sound when it leaves her side, she lets Alec rest hir palm against Tom’s chest as the two of them move together. 

 

*** 

 

“A moment, Tommy my lad.” 

Tommy glances up from his winter-recess reading, leaving one finger to mark his place in the sociology textbook to find Sebastian watching him from the doorway, hands cupped around a mug of tea, wearing a brown wool sweater and looking unreadable. 

“Sir?”

Seb’s mouth twitches, and Tommy’s eyebrows go up the least bit to recognize Siobhan’s expression on her father’s face. 

“Talk to me about Alec.” Seb leans a shoulder against the doorframe, clearly attempting to be delicate. “She—he—Jesus, Tommy, what’s going on? Jim’s being bloody prim about the whole situation, and I _know_ he’s already worked it out.”

“Ah.” He closes the book, dog-earing his page. Tommy just sits for a moment, silent, until Sebastian rakes a hand through his graying hair and gives him something just short of a glare. Then Tommy shrugs, expansive, a motion he learned from Siobhan’s father before his voice had even broken. 

“It’s not my place,” he says, finally, firmly. “Alec’s my boyfriend and Siobhan’s girlfriend. Our partner. That’s—there’s nothing more to say. It’s working for us, sir. She’s alright. Siobhan is. It’s not like the last time, I wouldn’t have let it get this far if it was.” Tommy pauses, ruffles his own hair in unconscious imitation, and to his surprise Sebastian steps forward and puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“Are you happy with—him, I guess?” he asks, quietly. “I know Moriartys can be persuasive, Tom, but you don’t have to let Siobhan run your love life as well as the rest of it—” 

Tommy gives him a blank look, the same one he gives Seb every time not following where she leads comes up. “It’s fine, sir. I like Alec. We get on. And he’s good for Siobhan.”

The man sighs, and squeezes his shoulder. Tommy shyly reaches up to grip Seb’s wrist; and after a moment they let each other go. 

“It’s all right,” Tommy says, and it is so strange to be reassuring Siobhan’s father about her, not the other way around. Sebastian picks up his tea, half-smiles, and is halfway out the door before he turns. 

“Thank you,” he says. And even after he’s gone from the room the sincerity in his voice keeps Tommy shaken, straight down to the bone. 

 

***

 

Siobhan and her mum don’t get each other alone for three days, until the last night; until the last morning, really, even though the sun is nowhere near rising when she goes out into the garden to find him drawing smoke into his lungs, breathing it out. He does not look at her, but he drops a hand down to his side. She folds easily to her knees, and leans childlike against his leg, reassured by the warmth of her mum’s hand on her head, the chill of the ground under her.

“Is it well, pet?” Jim’s voice is soft, and his accent holds her steady. Siobhan takes her time about answering, watching the frost melt around her fingers, soak into her trousers. 

“Yeah, mum.” 

She can see the gleam of Jim’s eye as he doesn’t quite glance down at her, his slow considering blink. Siobhan presses her head into his thigh, briefly, lifts her palm to her mouth, and licks drops of water off it, fastidious as a cat. 

“It works,” she says after a long silence, long enough for the moon to move, long enough for the frost to reform on the grass in the shape of her hand. “It won’t be a permanent situation; we’re all aware of that. I’m fairly certain Alec would not have—become involved, with me, were that not the case. With Tommy, yes.” Siobhan catches her lower lip up between her teeth and bears down, just short of drawing blood, until Jim tugs her braid. She lets go and hisses at him, without malice. He strokes her hair, neither of them taking any notice of the December cold, and Siobhan waits patiently, knowing he isn’t done, not yet. 

“You’re still seeing The Girl.”

She makes a derogatory sound at him, and Jim laughs, rolls his wrist in a tight, lewd gesture, the cigarette leaving a glowing trail in the air. 

“I’m glad to hear it, Siobhan.” His voice is light but serious. “When O’Doyle called, your father I had—concerns.”

“Yes.”

Another long silence, the sympathetic thrum between them loud in it. 

“Are they justified, pet?”

Siobhan can feel the minute shifts of his weight, the shiver in the big muscle of his thigh, and she can feel them echo in her own body, simple and obvious, and she is her mother’s daughter so strongly that she has to catch her breath. Jim hums, and reaches down to help her up. Siobhan’s hands clasp his automatically, and he steadies her; or she steadies him. It’s no longer quite clear, after so long, and he blinks at her, as long-lashed and empty-eyed as she is. 

Siobhan doesn’t answer. 

She doesn’t have to. 

 


End file.
